Vietnamese passport holders need an ETA approved before flying to Colombo through Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur or Singapore. A tourist ETA allows 30 days and two entries, and the standard government rate applies to Vietnam.
30 days
Stay on a tourist ETA
Double
Entries permitted
6 months
Passport validity needed
3 options
Tourist, Business, Transit
100% online
No embassy visit
Important for Vietnamese citizens
Vietnam is not among the 40 countries covered by Sri Lanka's waiver of the tourist ETA government charge, so the standard rate applies to Vietnamese passports. The live prices shown on this page give the current total.
Overview
Sri Lanka is still a new idea for most Vietnamese travellers, which is part of its appeal. Tour operators in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City have begun selling it as the next step after Thailand, Bali and India: an island small enough to cross in a week, with elephants, tea terraces, colonial forts and some of the most important Buddhist sites in Asia.
Before any of that, a Vietnamese citizen needs an Electronic Travel Authorisation. People searching in Vietnam usually type xin visa Sri Lanka, and for a short visit the ETA is that visa in practice: an online approval linked to your passport number, obtained before departure and checked by the airline at Tan Son Nhat or Noi Bai.
Vietnam falls outside the group of countries whose government charge was waived in May 2026, so Vietnamese adults pay the standard rate. This page explains what the authorisation allows, how to enter a Vietnamese name without creating a mismatch, and how the trip fits around Tet and the summer holidays.
At a glance
Eligibility
Yes. Vietnamese travellers are used to visa-free entry across ASEAN and sometimes assume that South Asia's island neighbour works the same way. It does not: Sri Lanka requires an approved ETA from every Vietnamese visitor, and there is no exemption based on length of stay.
For holidaymakers the tourist option is the correct one. It covers sightseeing, a pilgrimage to the Temple of the Tooth or the sacred Bodhi tree at Anuradhapura, visiting friends, yoga and Ayurveda programmes, and taking part in sports or cultural events.
Vietnam and Sri Lanka are both major garment exporters, and buyers, factory managers and technicians travel between them for meetings and short training. Those visits belong under the business option. A Vietnamese engineer spending three weeks training staff at a Sri Lankan plant is not a tourist, even if the weekends are spent on the beach.
Children travelling on their own Vietnamese passports are listed individually in the application. Sri Lanka does not collect its government fee for tourists under 12, so a family from Da Nang with two primary-school children pays that charge for the parents alone. Teenagers are treated as adults for this purpose.
Stay & validity
The tourist ETA allows a Vietnamese visitor 30 days from the date of first arrival and two entries. Most Vietnamese itineraries run seven to ten days, so the limit is rarely a concern, but it matters to anyone adding the Maldives or a side trip to India.
Leaving and coming back does not extend anything. Suppose you arrive in Colombo on 10 February for Tet, fly to Malé on the 17th and return on the 21st: you re-enter with the remainder of the period that began on 10 February. A stay beyond the date stamped in your passport needs an extension from the Department of Immigration and Emigration at Battaramulla.
An approved ETA remains usable for travel for six months from issue, so there is no harm in applying when the tour is booked. Sri Lanka also wants six months of passport validity on the day you arrive. Vietnamese ordinary passports cannot be extended, only replaced, and a replacement means a new number and therefore a new ETA.
Pricing
Live fees for Vietnamese passport holders, shown all-in — any government charge that applies to your passport and our service fee together, with nothing added later.
Your nationality is pre-selected as Vietnam
Requirements
Everything Vietnamese passport holders need before starting an application. The first five items apply to every applicant; the rest are specific to your nationality.
Passport valid for at least six months from the date you arrive in Sri Lanka — the same passport you will travel on
A clear image of the passport bio-data page, with every corner visible and no glare over the photograph
A working email address, which is where the approval is sent and which you should be able to open while travelling
A credit or debit card for online payment
Your intended arrival date and an address in Sri Lanka, such as your first hotel
Simple process
Four steps, entirely online, with one form per traveller and a full review before you pay.
Pick the Tourist, Business or Transit option that matches the real purpose of your trip, and add every traveller in your party to the same application.
Give each traveller's details exactly as printed on the passport, plus the intended arrival date and an address in Sri Lanka. Entries are made in English.
Check every name, date and passport number on the review screen before paying. Corrections are simple at this stage and difficult afterwards.
The approval is linked electronically to your passport number. Keep a copy on your phone and a printout with your travel documents for check-in and arrival.
Vietnamese applications usually come back approved in a day or two. Because that is typical and not guaranteed, apply no later than three to five days before you fly, and earlier if you are part of a tour group whose passports are being collected by an agency.
The weeks before Tet are the pressure point. Offices in Vietnam wind down, flights are at their fullest, and travellers tend to leave paperwork until the last working day. Sri Lanka is also in high season then. Submitting two or three weeks before the Lunar New Year removes the risk.
Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City are an hour and a half ahead of Colombo. If you are making a tight connection in Bangkok or Kuala Lumpur, have the approval saved on your phone and printed, because the transfer desk for the Colombo flight will ask for it before issuing the onward boarding pass.
On arrival
An approved ETA gets you on the plane. This is what happens once you land, and how to make the arrival as quick as possible.
Bandaranaike International Airport at Katunayake, about 30 kilometres north of Colombo, handles nearly all international arrivals. Follow the signs to immigration and join the foreign passport queue.
The officer retrieves your ETA from the passport number. Have the approval email to hand as a backup, on paper or saved offline, since airport connectivity is not guaranteed.
You may be asked where you are staying, how long for and when you leave. A hotel confirmation and your return ticket answer all three in a few seconds.
Your passport is endorsed with the date you must leave by. Read it at the counter — that date, not the length of your booking, is what counts if your plans change.
Getting there
No airline currently flies nonstop between Vietnam and Sri Lanka, so every journey involves one change. The natural hubs are Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur and Singapore, each a short flight from Hanoi, Da Nang or Ho Chi Minh City and each with daily services onward to Colombo.
Best time to go
Tet, in late January or February, is the obvious window and a good one. The beaches from Bentota round to Mirissa and Tangalle are dry and calm, whales pass close to the south coast, and the hill country around Ella and Nuwara Eliya is clear. Travellers from Hanoi swap a grey, drizzly winter for 30-degree sunshine.
The Reunification Day and Labour Day break at the end of April arrives as the seasons turn. The south-west is hot and starting to see rain, so a short trip is better spent on the Cultural Triangle, with Sigiriya, Dambulla and Polonnaruwa, where conditions are steadier.
School summer holidays from June to August point to the opposite coast. Trincomalee and Pasikudah have their best sea conditions then, while Galle and Colombo are in the south-west monsoon. The Kandy Esala Perahera, held in July or August, is worth planning a family trip around.
National Day on 2 September gives a long weekend at the very end of the east-coast season. October and November bring inter-monsoon showers to much of the island, which is when fares from Vietnam tend to be lowest and when anyone who dislikes crowds will find the ancient cities quiet.
Avoid these
Problems are rare, and almost always technical rather than substantive. These are the ones that come up most often on applications from Vietnam — worth a minute now rather than a new application later.
A passport reading NGUYEN VAN AN on a single line gives no visual clue to a form that asks for surname and given names separately. NGUYEN is the surname; VAN AN are the given names. Applicants who follow the Western order they use on social media reverse the two.
Keyboards set to Telex or VNI add tone marks automatically. The application has to match the unaccented capitals in the machine-readable zone, where Đ is printed as D. Switch the keyboard to English before you begin and compare the result with the bottom two lines of the photo page.
Group tours are often booked months ahead with a copy of the old passport. If you have since been issued a new one, the number the agency holds is wrong. Send the new photo page yourself before the application goes in.
Self-made connections on two low-cost airlines through Kuala Lumpur or Bangkok are popular with Vietnamese travellers. They mean collecting bags and checking in again, and the second airline will refuse boarding without the ETA. Allow several hours and carry the approval.
Passport number mistyped
The authorisation attaches to the number you enter. One wrong character produces an ETA that does not match the passport handed over at the counter, and a paid application cannot be edited afterwards.
Passport with under six months left
Sri Lanka expects six months of validity counted from the day you arrive, not the day you apply. A passport that falls short is refused at check-in regardless of the ETA.
The wrong ETA type
Attending meetings or a conference on a tourist ETA is outside its conditions. Choose the option that matches what you will actually do in the country.
Conditions
These conditions are set by Sri Lanka's Department of Immigration and Emigration and do not vary by nationality.
Sri Lanka requires an Electronic Travel Authorisation for short visits by all foreign nationals, and it should be approved before you travel. Even where the government charge is waived, the authorisation itself is still required.
The authorisation is recorded against the passport number you enter. If that passport is lost, replaced or renewed before you travel, the ETA does not move across and a new application is needed.
A tourist ETA allows two entries. The stay period runs from your first arrival, so a second entry is granted only the balance of that period rather than a fresh allowance.
A tourist ETA covers holidays, family visits, medical treatment and cultural or sporting events. Business meetings, conferences and short training need the business option, and a stopover of up to two days uses the transit option.
Immigration officers at the port of entry may ask for a confirmed return or onward ticket and evidence that you can support yourself for the length of your stay.
An approved ETA lets you travel to Sri Lanka. The decision to admit you is made by an immigration officer on arrival, and the conditions printed on your approval govern your stay.
Consular services
Sri Lanka has an embassy in Hanoi that deals with consular questions and with visas outside the online scheme. Vietnamese applicants for an ETA, including those living in Ho Chi Minh City or Da Nang, do not have to travel to Hanoi or submit a passport.
FAQs
The questions Vietnamese passport holders ask most often about travelling to Sri Lanka.
Yes, Vietnamese citizens must hold an Electronic Travel Authorisation before travelling to Sri Lanka, and for a short trip this is what is generally meant by a Sri Lanka visa. The tourist version permits a 30-day stay with two entries. Vietnam is charged the standard government rate.
Put the first word of your printed full name, the family name, in the surname field and everything after it in the given-names field. Leave out all accents and write Đ as D. The spelling should be identical to the machine-readable lines at the foot of the photo page.
Not at present. Travellers from Hanoi, Da Nang and Ho Chi Minh City change once, most often in Bangkok, Kuala Lumpur or Singapore. With a good connection the whole journey takes six to nine hours.
No. The waiver introduced on 25 May 2026 names 40 countries and Vietnam is not one of them. Vietnamese adults pay the standard government rate, while children under 12 are not charged it. See the live prices shown on this page for the amount.
Thirty days, counted from the first day you enter. The ETA lets you enter a second time, for example after a few days in the Maldives, but only for the days still left. Longer visits depend on an extension issued inside Sri Lanka.
You can, since an approval may be used for six months from the date it is issued. What matters is that the passport stays the same. If you expect to replace your Vietnamese passport before the trip, wait for the new one.
The rules for your passport, not your residence. A Vietnamese citizen working in Tokyo or Seoul applies as a Vietnamese national at the standard rate, even though Japanese and South Korean passport holders are covered by the waiver. A residence card does not change that.
Yes, if you are going for meetings, negotiations, a conference or training of under one month. Those purposes fall outside the tourist ETA. Choose the business option when you start the application so that your stated purpose and your activities agree.
Your nationality is already set to Vietnam. Complete the form in around ten minutes, review every detail, and receive your ETA by email.
Other nationalities
Charges, routes and the practical details differ by passport. Here are the guides for other nationalities.
